


aerie

by bioluminesce



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28800990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioluminesce/pseuds/bioluminesce
Summary: A quiet moment with Bayek, Aya and Senu — a Chocobox treat.
Relationships: Aya | Amunet/Bayek (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	aerie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Odalyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odalyn/gifts).



> Senu is of utmost importance; I absolutely agree.

A key in falconry is to keep the bird hungry. Senu wouldn’t come as happily to an empty fist, wouldn’t listen as well on a full stomach. Senu was different, but this still governed her to a point.

Bayek knew he possessed a bond with his eagle that others did not with their own regal court hunting birds or carefully preened desert hawks. To see through Senu’s eyes and direct her movements was a gift, gods-touched and burning with uncanny fire. Even now, from where he reclined with Aya on the top of a tower covered with greenery and pink flowers, Bayek could reach out and feel the presence of Senu’s mind like a doorway he could walk through.

Just that easy, just that smooth, just as warm as walking across his own threshold with his wife in his arms, he told Senu to return to him.

And _Aya_. She slept against his chest, breathing softly. Like a cat, her stillness held the promise of liquid movement. To imagine her climbing and killing, the long muscles of her legs working, was to see all the glory of the world in the patterns on her skin. When he looked at her his breath expanded past his chest to fill the sky, leaving him light and limber.

Senu landed next to Bayek and Aya with a rush of wings and the smell of desert wind and dust. Bayek stroked Senu’s neck with one hand and the curve of Aya’s side with the other. Senu chirped and darted dagger looks around the tower, love in her tolerance. Bayek idly checked her flight feathers for breaks, pinching each one and drawing outward, dislodging faint dust. Senu was disciplined enough to stand still for this, but the darting of her head grew more impatient. By the time he finished she was eager to move and had an eye on Aya’s minutely swaying braids.

As if she felt the eagle’s eyes on her, Aya woke up and returned Senu’s stare. Bayek smiled to see all of them together. Family was fragile — Bayek knew that so well, every pillar of it laced with cracks — and he wondered sometimes whether it mattered that he and Aya loved one another best when they were apart for so long.

But people weren’t eagles. For humanity, loyalty did not operate on the principle of deprivation. As he waited in the comfortable silence — before endearments, before any talk about their work — he knew that as vividly as he knew the feeling of Aya’s weight on him. For too long, he had been starving. Fill him up, he asked of a universe he knew was both bloody and beautiful. Bring him in with not a lack of love but an excess of it.


End file.
